Can This Former Clerk Save Best Buy?

Shawn Score, who started at Best Buy 26 years ago and is now head of U.S. stores, says the chain has 'let its customer-service muscle atrophy.'
Jenn Ackerman for The Wall Street Journal

By

Ann Zimmerman

Updated April 26, 2013 2:39 p.m. ET

As Best Buy Co. tries to reinvigorate its big-box store business, it is counting on a onetime store clerk to fix a pressing problem: a belief among many consumers that its blue-shirted workers don't know what they are talking about.

Shawn Score, Best Buy's senior vice president of U.S. retail, who started out selling VCRs and camcorders at a Best Buy in North Dakota 26 years ago, acknowledges the electronics chain has "let its customer-service muscle atrophy."

That is a big problem for a retailer that derives more than 90% of its $50 billion in annual revenue from stores, and considers the know-how of its staff to be a bulwark against cutthroat price competition from the likes of Amazon.com Inc.

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But Mr. Score, 47 years old, who has a white binder on his desk cataloging the "pain points" that have led its customers to walk out empty-handed—apathetic sales clerks, out-of-stock items—says he has a plan to end shoppers' hurt.

Since being tasked by Chief Executive Hubert Joly with turning around the big-box stores in November, Mr. Score has been applying lessons he learned running Best Buy's small Best Buy Mobile outlets to the company's flagship stores.

He has boosted sales training to better educate workers on the products they are selling; begun incentive pay to reward workers who increase sales and help their store sections raise customer satisfaction scores; and made sure managers schedule their most-experienced workers on weekends, when stores are busiest.

The straightforward fixes, coupled with a price-match guarantee, appear to have helped Best Buy stabilize its financial results. In the quarter ended Feb. 2, Best Buy trimmed its loss to $409 million, compared with a loss of $1.82 billion a year earlier. For the first time in a year, Best Buy also increased U. S. sales at stores open more than 14 months.

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Mr. Score still has a long way to go to win back customers such as John Hopper, who says he shopped at a Best Buy store in Dallas on a recent Saturday only because his wife insisted they needed a new printer immediately.

Mr. Hopper, a 52-year-old construction company co-owner, questioned the notion of training talented store workers, noting that nowadays, he no longer needs them to decide what he wants to buy.

"I knew exactly what I wanted, because I did my research online and I would have bought it there, too, if I could have," he said.

Analysts believe Best Buy has to repair its reputation for lackluster service if it is to prosper. People have started referring to the chain as "that blue and gold store where the salesperson usually can't help you," said Gary Balter, a retail analyst at Credit Suisse.

Best Buy shares have doubled since the start of the year, but some Wall Street analysts think there is a limit to how much the stores can rebound as online electronics sales continue to grow.

"Shawn is doing all the right stuff, but I am just not sure you can snap your fingers and all these new shoppers will start running to Best Buy," said Colin McGranahan, retail analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Roughly 20% of all consumer electronics are now bought online according to Best Buy. Best Buy is trying to improve its website by enhancing its online product descriptions and selection, but it faces higher operating costs than its online-only competitors due to the high labor costs and long-term leases of its more than 1,400 stores.

Mr. Score believes a large segment of shoppers will always want a physical location to try out different electronic products and have someone help get them to work. He says his job is to make sure they don't just use Best Buy stores as showrooms, but buy there as well.

The stores are attempting to turning more browsers into buyers. While its sales closure rate hasn't improved, customer satisfaction scores have ticked up recently.

The problem of high staff turnover is proving harder to correct. For several years, staff turnover hovered around 60%, although since last summer it has eased a bit. Still, Mr. Score says, it remains higher than the company's historical average of 35%.

Mr. Score says he might be further along if not for the distractions of the past year. Among them is working for three CEOs in 12 months, including Brian Dunn, a fellow store veteran who resigned last year amid a company probe into whether he had an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer.

But that also means there is still upside to his store revival, he says.

"I have only cracked 10% of this book," he says, pointing to the "pain points" binder.

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